


Alone

by phoenix316



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix316/pseuds/phoenix316
Summary: The Battle of Hogwarts is over. Remus Lupin survived though he wishes he hadn't, that he had perished and Dora had lived instead of him. Not wanting to be alone, he heads into the forest to end it all. Can he be saved?
Kudos: 1





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cleaning out my works in progress and found this fun one where I decided to see if I could tell a story in 100 word chunks going back and forth between the two characters. It was more difficult than I thought, but overall it was a fun exercise and I'm quite pleased with how this came out given the limits of 100 words per segment.

Alone. Nothing worth living for. Not without her. He had found someone who loved him unconditionally, but now she was gone. Never again would he see her violent purple hair, hear her ridiculous laugh when she morphed herself to entertain others. He had found it childish, but now he found it endearing, now that he would never see it again. He wished it had been him instead of her. She was young, successful, had her whole life in front of her. He had nothing. No job, no savings, nothing but his grief, ostracized from everyone. He didn't want their pity.

She watched him from afar, seeing his head slung low, unwilling or unable to face the world. She longed to comfort him, but how? What would she say to someone who had lost the person they loved most? She felt she should know. After all, she supposedly knew everything, but book learning did not prepare a person for this. Nothing could prepare a person for what they had experienced on this long night. So much death, so much destruction, so much senselessness. Ron and his family were grieving their loss. Harry was wandering, as lost and alone as she was.

In the distance he could hear voices raised in celebration. How could they celebrate? Yes, Voldemort was defeated, but so many had fallen, so many weren't around to rejoice. It seemed as perverse as it had nearly sixteen years ago. He'd retreated then, and he found himself doing the same now. Everyone he loved was gone. This time he would vanish for good. Looking around, he found himself alone. The survivors were with their friends and family. He had neither. No one would miss him. Slumping his shoulders, he turned towards the Forbidden Forest – a fitting place for his end.

She followed cautiously, unsure why. She just felt that no one should be alone, that he needed to know he still had friends, still had people who cared about him. When he slipped into the forest, she feared for the worst and quickened her pace, hoping to find him before he was forever lost to them. Moving quietly, she tried to listen for any sound, to discern which way he had gone. She thought she heard breaking branches to her right, and she moved that way, masking her sound to ensure that she could hear any noise he might make.

He finally felt he was deep enough in the forest no one would find him, assuming anyone would even look for him. Hopefully they would assume he was another victim, perished in battle. He didn't want anyone to know what he was about to do, especially his son. He'd thought of going back for Teddy, but why? He would never be able to support himself, let alone a child. Teddy would be better off without him. He leaned back against a tree, slipped to the ground, pulled out his wand, and stared at it, deciding which spell was most efficient.

Moving cautiously, she listened for any sound. She saw a shape next to a tree and slowly approached. As he came into view, she could see he had his wand raised, pointed at himself. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. This was something she had never expected from him. She couldn't let him go through this with his plan. Even though he apparently didn't think so, she knew that he had a lot to live for. Quickly she drew her wand and with practiced grace cast her spell. " _Expelliarmus_!" she shouted and watched his wand fly away from him.

He looked around in shock when his wand flew out of his hand, trying to see who had dared follow him. "Why did you stop me?" he asked angrily. This was how he had planned to end the pain, to give his son the best chance at a future. He should have died during battle, struck down just as his beautiful Dora had been. She would be immortalized as a hero, remembered for her bravery. He had no idea how he would be remembered, if he would be remembered at all. It was probably best if he was just forgotten.

She closed the distance between them, keeping her wand at the ready, taking in the anguish on his face. She had wanted to be mad at him for taking the coward's way out, but looking into his face and seeing the pain, she found that anger dissipating. "Because I can't let you do that. I can't let you take the easy way out." She walked past him, towards where his wand had flown and picked it up off the ground, not wanting to risk him getting his hands back on it until she knew he wasn't going to use it.

She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She was just a girl, despite everything she, Harry and Ron had gone through, she was still a girl. She didn't understand love and how much it hurt to lose someone you loved. He had lost so many, James, Lily, Peter, though that had been false, Sirius. Dora was just the latest, and he wanted her to be the last. He couldn't bear the pain of losing anyone else. "You think that's the easy way out? You think that I'm being a coward?" She hadn't said it, but he figured she had wanted to.

She knew that his thoughts were clouded with grief, that he wasn't thinking clearly. "I'm not saying you are a coward," she replied, though she knew that Harry had levied those very words at him when he had offered to join them in the Horcrux hunt. "What you were going to do," she paused, choosing her words carefully, "it's a permanent solution to a temporary situation," she said softly, hoping that she could get through to him, that she could find a way to make him realize that he did have things to live for, that he had a future.

"You think my situation is temporary?" he asked angrily. She might think she understood him, but she did not. No one could understand what he had gone through in his life, how hard it was, how much he would taint his son. "There is nothing temporary about my situation, about my _condition_!" He was no longer holding back his anger. "I have no future. I was barely surviving as it was. If I could barely take care of myself, there is no way I will also be able to take care of my son. I can't subject him to that."

She sat beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "We can change that. If ever there was a time to implement change, it's now. You successfully taught an entire year at Hogwarts. You proved that your condition can be managed safely. Everything tonight proved that what was going on before was the wrong answer. Instead of giving up, you should be fighting for change." She watched as he glanced away from her, staring at the ground. She clearly wasn't getting through to him. "You need to be someone your son can be proud of, fight for what's right."

What did he have to fight for? "He would be proud if he had known his father had died a hero. That was denied to me. It should have been me instead of her," he said angrily. He closed his eyes and could feel tears leaking through his closed eyelids. "She was the one who should have survived," he finished quietly. He had tried to get to her, tried to take the curse that Bellatrix had thrown at her, but he had been too far away. He had failed to protect her. "It should have been me instead of her."

She wrapped her arms around him, at an utter loss for words. After a minute, she said, "Together we can work to ensure that you, others like you, are treated fairly. It's time for the Ministry to start providing the Wolfsbane Potion. It's time that you and the others are treated fairly. I know it won't happen right away, but we can make it happen. Not just the two of us, but the other members of the Order, we can all fight together, to give you a future, so that your son can look up to you," she said adamantly.

He raised his head and looked curiously at her. "You would do that for me? You think the others would do that for me?" He knew James and Sirius had talked about it after they graduated, that they had indicated they would advocate to end the discrimination his kind received, but that had naturally never happened when James and Lily died. Would someone else take up that banner? Would others really fight for him? After all, Dumbledore probably could have done just that, but he never did. Remus had been left to languish to fight for survival with odd jobs.

"I would," she said firmly. "I'm used to causes others think are hopeless, but I know this one isn't hopeless. What you did tonight was heroic, whether you see it or not. You saved the lives of dozens of students." She released his shoulders and took hold of his hand. "You were the best teacher we ever had, and I think that Professor McGonagall is going to need all the help she can get. I want to see you here, preparing future generations for whatever may come. I know Harry and Ron will speak out." She willed him to believe.

He considered her words carefully. He knew that Harry's words would carry great weight, but was it enough? Would the Ministry change enough? Would they accept the fact that people like him could lead a nearly normal life through use of the Wolfsbane Potion? Would they accept someone like him teaching their children? Was everything he did enough, or would he be tainted by the actions of Greyback and the other rogue werewolves? "I may be the exception to the rule. I think people are more likely to remember what Greyback did rather than what I did," he said morosely.

"We won't let them. And you weren't the only one of your kind fighting for our side. Not all of them chose to side with Voldemort. And we'll use the fact that so many turned as a reason why the current treatment isn't working. We can't marginalize people, take away all their hope and expect them to not turn on society." She knew that had been the problem. Hopeless people were easy to recruit to turn against an establishment that marginalized them. The Ministry had to change to ensure something like this never happened again. And they had the means.

He tried not to let her optimism ruin his dark mood. He knew what she was trying to do, and he still wasn't sure he wanted to be saved. Too many times in his life he had gotten his hopes up only to have them dashed. "Maybe. But maybe this isn't a fight worth fighting. If you fight this and lose…" He knew if they failed to make a difference to change the status quo, it would taint them for the rest of their lives, that they would forever be remembered as those who wanted to unleash werewolves in society.

She rose to her feet, turned to face him, a look of determination on her face. "Please, come with me. Let's do this together." She held her hand towards him. "I'm willing to fight for what's right. You have been treated unfairly your entire life. It's time to change that, time to do what countless others should have done over the years. I won't give up on you. You deserve better, Teddy deserves better. You don't have to be alone." She waited to see what he would do, to see if she had maybe gotten through to him at all.

He considered her hand a few moments before looking into her eyes. He could tell from her look that she was serious, that she was not going to give up. He didn't have to be alone, she had said. It seemed such a foreign concept for someone who had lived a life mostly alone, afraid to form close attachments lest someone discover what he was. But he knew there was no hiding it anymore, that everyone was sure to know. Finally, he realized she was right. That giving up was the wrong answer. He took hold of her hand. "Together."


End file.
